Foodbank

The food bank in Ludlow is housed in Ludlow Baptist Church, but is supported by all the churches in Ludlow. We give food parcels to people in crisis situations, who are referred to us.The contact phone number is 07896 706 189.We have volunteers on duty 11a.m. - 1p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,when agency workers or parcel recipients can collect their parcels. We do not offer an automatic delivery service, but parcels can be delivered by special arrangement.

2017 has been a year that has seen many acts of kindness, and we have seen great generosity from very many people in the Ludlow area.

We have received donations from many schools, Ludlow college, doctors’ surgeries, local churches, businesses, sports clubs, groups and individuals. If I tried to name everyone, I would be sure to miss someone. One school that I would like to highlight this year is Moor Park School. They have been giving very generous harvest donations to us for some time, and this year I managed to catch them on film with some of their donation. These pupils missed their break in order to deliver their harvest donations, and we are very grateful to them.

This year has also seen the launch of the “kettle pack”, providing food for people who only have access to a kettle for food preparation (mostly rough sleepers and people housed temporarily at the Travelodge). This has been a great success, and we are currently well stocked with instant food.

Over all, we have been busier this year than we were last year. This year we gave away 206 food parcels. In 2016 we gave away 163 food parcels.

Below is a chart showing the numbers of food parcels given out by us each year since 2008. We have been in existence since 2005, but I do not have the figures for the first 3 years.

The 206 parcels given out this year were made up as follows:

We try to include enough food in a parcel to feed someone for about a week, so we have given out enough food to feed 385 people for a week – that is quite a lot of food. The reasons for needing a food parcel can be quite varied, but largely fall into the following categories:

The financial problems are occurring for people in work. Most of the benefit problems were delays in receiving payment.The homelessness figures are numbers of food parcels given to homeless people, not the number of homeless people. Homeless people fall into two groups – those that are “sofa-surfing” and those that have been living in a tent.

Those that were living in tents did have more than 3 food parcels – partly because they could only manage to carry and store small amounts of food (possibly only a third or half of a normal food parcel), and partly because the complexity of their problems meant they could not be solved quickly. All the people who were living in tents earlier this year are now in more suitable accommodation.

Below is a graph showing the numbers of food parcels given out each month:

Below is a graph showing the number of children helped each month, this correlates quite well with graph above.

The children helped are in the care of adults.

We have had requests for food parcels from 24 different agencies this year, with Citizens’ Advice Bureau and South Shropshire Housing being the busiest.

The distribution of age range has always amazed me, and the graph is much the same as previous years:

Below is a chart showing geographically where the parcels were required. I do know the locations of the “nearby villages”, but do not wish to name them for reasons of confidentiality.

Volunteers

Below is a graph showing which days the food parcels were made up and collected. So our Wednesday volunteers have been the busiest!

We are very grateful to all our volunteers who do such a good job, sadly this year we have had to say good-bye to some of our volunteers, some have moved away, and some have other commitments. We have however had some new volunteers, which is such a blessing.Everyone who works at the food bank is a volunteer, and we are given use of the room without charge. This means that all monetary donations can be used to buy food.

Christmas hampers

This year we have again been able to give Christmas Hampers to around 50 households – hopefully making their Christmases happier. We did use some of the donated money for Christmas bags.

Hands Together Ludlow

We have also been working more closely with Hands Together Ludlow, particularly with the food group and the technology group.This year saw a presentation at the food festival about the food bank.

We are hoping to start some “pop-up” computer sessions around the town later in the year so that people applying for Universal Credit can easily get online, and will have some assistance in filling in the forms. The CAB currently offer this service, but are very stretched, and are helping Hands together Ludlow to put together this service. There will also be some training from Shropshire council for volunteers. This will hopefully minimise delays in receiving benefits, and may reduce the number of food parcels we need to give away.

Parcel Contents

Due to storage constraints, we generally only give out non-perishable foods.Occasionally fresh food is donated, and we try to give it away as soon as possible. We do not give out of date food or alcohol.

We do stock a small number of toilet rolls, nappies, sanitary products and toiletries. We also have a small amount of pet food as sometimes people in crisis are often more worried about their pet than themselves. These items are given out on request.

Local Supermarkets

I would like to address the slightly thorny issue of local supermarkets, food waste and food banks.

From time to time Tesco have given us some quite large quantities of food, especially when they were discontinuing certain lines.Tesco support Trussell Trust food banks, most food banks in Shropshire and Herefordshire are independent food banks, and in our case, predate Trussell Trust. Trussell Trust do a fantastic job, on a scale that suits larger towns and cities.

Tesco do give fresh food away on a regular basis, the food bank do not take part in this scheme because of the difficulty of storing fresh food. However Hands together Ludlow do collect food from Tesco, and use it at their lunch clubs. Sometimes they also cook ready meals for us which we can store in a freezer and give out with food parcels.

Aldi have allowed collections for us in the past, and this Christmas Eve they were giving away surplus fresh food. We did not take advantage of this, because of the storage problem.

Hands Together Ludlow are looking into the whole issue of food waste, and are hoping to come up with practical ways to reduce waste and help the food bank.

We are currently low on Tinned Fruit, Cereal & Tinned Meals.

Finally I would like to thank everyone for their help and support this year.